


The Best Is Yet To Be

by blackash26



Series: Fakiru Week 2014 [6]
Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Death from Old Age, F/M, Growing Old Together, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-25 10:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2618642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackash26/pseuds/blackash26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duck and Fakir grow old together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Is Yet To Be

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fakiru Week 2014 Day 6. Prompt: Time.
> 
> Title inspired by Robert Browning's poem Rabbi ben Ezra which begins:
> 
> "Grow old along with me! / The best is yet to be..."

Time was a funny thing. A mere moment could seem to last forever, but days and weeks and months and years somehow bled together, passing in the blink of an eye.

One day Fakir got up in the morning and looked in the mirror to find that he had grown old. On some level, he had known he was aging. How could he not? The new stiffness in his joints and his weakening eyesight had been around for a while. The gray in his hair had come on quite early. But he had never actually  _felt_  old.

That day he sat on the dock by his little house and watched his little yellow duck swim happily past. She was getting old too. Her movements, while still graceful, were slowing and she seemed to get tired just as easily as he did.

He sometimes wondered how it was that she was still alive. Most ducks barely lived beyond ten years of age. His duck, he knew, was much, much older than that.

 

The people of Gold Crown Town had thought him mad when he first moved beyond the walls of the city to live in the wood cabin by the pond. On the days when he went into town for supplies, he always heard new rumors about himself. When he was younger, the whispers that followed him left him feeling self-conscious. These days, he simply felt bemused by the creativity of the townsfolk.

He was everything from a wizard to a demon in the stories they told about him. He didn’t know where they got these ideas. Sometimes he doubted his ability as a writer, because he did not think he could come up with a single one of those explanations on his own.

Perhaps that was because he was blinded by the reality of his true story. He lived his simple life every day and could not imagine living any other life.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was his and he was happy.

***

Time passed, as was its wont.

Musing before the crackling fire in his fireplace, Fakir thought about how, as he aged, time seemed to slip away even faster than it once did.

“I don’t know how much longer we’ll have,” he said aloud, to the little yellow duck resting on his knee.

“Quack?” she said.

“I don’t know if I have too many more winters in me,” he explained.

“Quack! Quack!” Her eyes were wide. If she were still a girl…a woman, she would be tearing up, he knew. But she wasn’t.

Fakir patted her head gently. “It’s okay, Duck. Don’t be sad. We’ve had a good life together, haven’t we?”

Reluctantly, she nodded her head.

“I did want to ask you something though,” he said.

Duck cocked her head to the side.

“I wanted to write one last story. A  _real_  story. About us. About what happens…next.”

Duck flapped her wings and flew a bit shakily up to his shoulder. She wasn’t flying as well as she used to, but she could still make it that far. She butted his chin with her head and he smiled. “I guess that’s a yes?”

“Quack!” she said.

***

Fakir spent the last three years of his life writing his and Duck’s story, from the beginning, to the end. As his strength began to truly fail him, Fakir finished their story and then, began it again.

With those final words finally on the page, he lay back in the bed he had been unable to get out of for several days.

Duck clambered up from her place by his side, up onto his chest.

“It’s done,” he said and smiled. “I hope you like it.”

“Quack,” Duck said.

He held her gently in his arms and closed his eyes and fell asleep.

When the dawn rose the next morning, both man and duck were still and silent in the arms of death. But the townsfolk who eventually found them insisted that they had never seen a pair look so at peace.

***

Many years later, on an island quite far away from Gold Crown Town, a little girl with pink hair and blue eyes was born. Her name was Ahiru. From the beginning she was a clumsy girl, but she had a big heart and brought hope and happiness to everyone she met. She loved to dance and she worked very hard to become a great ballerina.

In the same year that Ahiru was born, another child was born. His name was Fakir. He loved honor and justice and stories. He wanted, more than anything, to tell stories to the people around him.

One day, when Ahiru was running late to ballet class, she ran right into Fakir. And in the moment that their eyes met, they realized that they knew each other. And that they had been waiting their entire lives for this moment.

And so it was that Fakir and Duck were destined to meet again and again, lifetime after lifetime, because a love like theirs could survive all things. Even death.


End file.
